Stand or Kneel
by Alysma
Summary: In the huge district of Ikebukuro, where colors are clashing and powers are consuming, Masaomi Kida is assigned the hard task of fading the color of Ikebukuro's strongest man's existence for his comrades to stand out fully in the shine of delinquency.


_Title: Stand or Kneel_

_Summary: In the huge district of Ikebukuro, where colors are clashing and powers are consuming, Masaomi Kida is assigned the hard task of fading the color of Ikebukuro's strongest man's existence for his comrades to stand out fully in the shine of delinquency. Shizuo/Masaomi._

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything, unfortunately.**

**A/N: Many thanks to Jedi Master Bag and Miaou Jones at LJ for beta-reading this one-shot. I sincerely hope you'll like it just as much as I enjoyed writing it :)**

* * *

Masaomi had been looking through the window of his classroom for quite a long time now, and he hadn't been able to pay attention in the least to his homeroom teacher's voice. The woman's words were reduced to nothing but lost syllables and incomplete sentences, but it was the sharp noise of the steady footsteps she made with her high heels when walking around the rows of desks that prevented him from being completely out of touch with the class. In all honesty, the boy might have been zoning out all day long without considering even once what exactly he was staring at each time his eyes would look through the window to take a peek at the view his seat in the back left of the room had to offer. Never in his life had he wished so much for the minutes to last hours instead of mere seconds, but by the time that thought became the realization of his apprehension, the school bell echoed in the corridors, freeing the students of Raira High School from the boredom and the slumber that had made them want to collapse on their desks the whole afternoon.

Masaomi remained perfectly still as the classroom emptied rapidly. He'd have gladly let his reason take over his every limb and order him not to move in the vain attempt to keep himself from taking a path tainted with the shades of blood and the patterns of his nightmares. But the voice of his teacher calling for him pulled Masaomi out of his own reverie. His motions, as he stood up, were lacking confidence, and the way he walked out of the room was purposefully slow. The boy was all too aware of the almost tangible weight of doubts he was bearing as he made his way to the gate of the school. It felt thick, heavy, and unbearable on his shoulders. It took the shape of a fictitious ball and chain that was viciously tempting his feet to remain on the ground. Surpassing all those unnecessary sensations on his body was beyond his means, so he did the only thing he was capable of at that very moment: chasing his current thoughts, even if it was for a short lapse of time.

A few minutes later, Masaomi caught sight of his two friends waiting for him by the gate, as they usually did at the end of their classes, and couldn't help the edges of his lips curving into a weak smile. The hint of that smile never really vanished, even after the three of them left together and walked the same road before parting ways to go to their respective home.

Even though he didn't feel like it at all, the blond made sure to sustain the conversation during their walk by giving, for the umpteenth time, doubtful advice to Mikado on how to properly hit on a girl, all the while offering Anri understood winks that made the girl hide a soft laugh behind her hand, the latter being afraid that her reaction would only embarrass and deepen the blush on Mikado's cheeks even more. However, she'd never realize that the genuine smile on her face had taken Masaomi aback, because the boy felt suddenly at a loss for something to say, even if he suspected his racing heart rate to be worth a thousand words.

In other circumstances, he'd have simply put on the façade he was used to hiding behind, but their presence by his side didn't give him such a chance. The truth was that there was nothing he needed to protect himself from but the disarming laughter of the girl he liked and the old friendship he shared with his best friend. Perhaps treasuring those moments the most was one of his greatest weaknesses, and probably the reason why Masaomi couldn't bring himself to tell Mikado about the darkest corners that his life was made of. It went without saying that he cared for Anri as well, and alluding to the mere possibility of the girl suppressing her shy smile while worrying herself for someone who did not deserve it made him feel _sick_. Thus, he remained silent to preserve a semblance of peace in the distorted emotions of his heart even when they waved goodbye to each other.

It wouldn't take too long for Masaomi's silhouette to disappear from the sight of his two friends, the blond trotting along in a seemingly careless way as he went past the streetlight at the corner of the road he was heading for. But as soon as he did, Masaomi started sprinting as if his whole being depended on the outcome of that race. In fact, he had no choice but to run and let the overdose of adrenaline move his legs accordingly so he wouldn't have to notice how much they'd shake in fear otherwise. The boy took an alleyway that led to the front of the building he was living in before hurriedly climbing the metallic stairs to the floor of his apartment. He unlocked the door, slammed it with his back while removing his shoes, and then went to his closet to take a pair of black trousers along with a white hooded sweater and his yellow scarf out. As he was getting changed, he trampled on his school uniform that had long since met up with his bag on the floor, but Masaomi couldn't care less about it.

The next steps he took brought him before his night table, and what he saw then was his hand gripping the handle of the top drawer to open it and find, wrapped in a red tissue, the folding knife he was looking for. It was at that moment that the boy paused as he looked at the black wood surface of its handle which was reflecting the weak sunrays coming through the window, and put it in the pocket of his sweater without taking a second glance at it. Before leaving, Masaomi searched for the cell phone he left in the back pocket of his uniform's pair of trousers and kept it firmly in his right hand. Eventually, he stepped outside after putting his boots on and letting out a long, hesitant sigh.

The high school student resumed his race and hurtled down the stairs, nearly bumping into his neighbor, who was about the same age as he was, in the process. Said neighbor barely had the time to step aside at the sight of Masaomi in a hurry, but decided not to mind the blond's haste and greeted him anyway. The only answer to his greetings was a breeze and the sound of Masaomi's hurried steps growing more and more distant from him.

Masaomi needed to focus and considered which shortcuts to take in order to get where he wanted to go as quickly as possible. After walking along the corner of a street, he felt his cell phone vibrating in his hand and knew, without having to look at the screen, who was calling him. Masaomi blamed his breathlessness for making his voice waver so much when he answered the call. But hearing the voice of one of his gang's members telling him that they hadn't moved yet from the location Masaomi had been previously given actually allowed him to make his thoughts converge again on a single objective: retrieving his pride.

As he had announced on the phone, the boy got to the front of the Russian Sushi restaurant in less than ten minutes and managed to spot some of his men, who were apparently pretending to have a little chat. Masaomi frowned at the few of them, at how they distinguished themselves from the passersby with the yellow scarves they wore on different parts of their body, and he damned them in a whisper for acting so obvious in the middle of the square. To top it all, the boy was pretty sure that they had kept the scarves during the whole stalking, which was enough of a reason for him to shorten their life span. The urge to tell them off for having very little brains did cross his mind, but he knew better than drawing the attention on them all and screwing up his own cover.

The leader of the Yellow Scarves quietly joined the group and silenced the first one to shout a "Lead-!" with a painful kick on the leg. Had he been in a better mood, Masaomi wouldn't have hurt anyone in the first place, and the boy probably wouldn't be kneeling on the ground moaning in pain, but someone had to pay for their complete lack of responsibility. And trying to call for him out loud, risking to divulge Masaomi's identity to the passersby, was far more than just being irresponsible.

The look on Masaomi's face made them step back, but their leader was too accustomed to that natural response to the difference in strength between the boy and them to mind their move. What the members of the Yellow Scarves saw in Masaomi's eyes was neither fear nor bravery. What they saw was an impenetrable façade they could not see past, a dangerous mask made out of the boy's sole resolve to stand and go on. And it was also something they couldn't face without looking away. Still, they had yet to realize that said leader's gaze wasn't directed at them but at a tall blond-haired man who was busy talking to a man with short dreadlocks and glasses a few meters away from where they were.

Masaomi blinked a single time, let the passersby surrounding him turn into faceless and nameless shades of grey and adjusted the volume of their endless conversations so that they wouldn't be any louder than a muffled hum. Whatever backgrounds they might have, whatever story their lives could tell, it was a matter of little importance as he stared at the lean stature of the man dressed as a bartender with sunglasses. The moves of the man as he switched positions, concentrating his weight from his right leg to the left, created new folds on his suit and weren't so deep as to suggest that his body wasn't muscular, because it was. The fact that it left Masaomi unimpressed didn't mean he was oblivious to the man's insane strength. It simply showed that, unlike the numerous men who were defeated by Shizuo Heiwajima—known as the strongest man in the entire district of Ikebukuro—the boy wasn't losing his lucidity at his sight and could clearly tell that the man's strength lay almost solely on his impressive stamina.

His comrades strayed from the way of their leader as he walked forward, the latter's eyes focusing on the scene before him. Indeed, it seemed like a drunken man in his late twenties had pushed Shizuo, who hadn't seen him coming his way. The man, being as drunk and as ignorant as he was, turned around and put the blame on Shizuo in a speech full of curses and insults. Masaomi could already foretell the fate of the poor man, and therefore didn't even flinch when the drunkard nearly brushed his arm—making his blond locks waver slightly and fall upon his cheek—as the late man was flying and heading straight for the opposite wall. Masaomi didn't feel the need to look over his right shoulder, expecting his men not to have moved an inch from their seat on the ground, since they had surely fallen on their butts so that they wouldn't meet the flying man's trajectory, and he heard them run away along with the other members who were still on their feet as soon as the first stood.

Shizuo looked at the dying man, whose head, shoulders, and knees were still stuck on the dirty wall. The bodyguard wrinkled his nose as if smelling an unpleasant scent and lifted his arm that had made contact with the drunken man earlier. His reaction was immediate: he pulled his head away in disgust, as Tom Tanaka sighed heavily.

There was unfortunately no Simon to ask Shizuo not to use his strength to hurt, nor was the chef there to prevent Masaomi from following the bodyguard on his way back home. If he were there, the foreigner would have definitely warned the boy of the wicked intentions his eyes were showing, because Masaomi's gaze clearly belonged to a man ready to fight.

* * *

Masaomi took his yellow scarf from the left pocket of his white sweater and took care to firmly tie the edges behind the back of his head so that it'd hide the lower part of his face. He slowly turned the knob of the door he was facing and pushed it to check whether or not he'd have to use the wire he brought along, but understood rapidly that he wouldn't. The fact that the door wasn't locked made him consider the chances that Shizuo had previously noticed his presence during the stalking, thus purposefully leaving the door unlocked for Masaomi to fall into a trap. Actually, the more the blond considered it to be plausible, the more doubtful he grew, but the current situation required him to focus on his surroundings rather than giving some thought about the probabilities of having gotten caught, since he had already entered the apartment. After going past the entry, it took him a certain time to adjust his sight to the darkness, but he still managed to identify some elements of the room he had come across and realized that it was serving the man as a living-room as well as a bedroom. The bed was against the right wall in the center, and a coffee table separated it from a black screen which was placed against the opposite wall. The room was wide enough to receive other furniture apart from the nightstand next to the bed, but Masaomi didn't have time to dwell on such minor details, the only thing really bothering him being the man's absence.

He proceeded further into the room, the moonlight coming through the sliding glass doors barely lighting the path of his steps on the floor due to some passing clouds. By the time Masaomi stood by the bed and looked at the undone sheets, he realized he shouldn't have let his guard down because he heard fast steps coming his way, soon followed by a hand suddenly settling on his mouth and an arm encircling his body in a tight and painful embrace. The boy struggled in panic, trying desperately to free his arms which were pinned against his ribbings because of the man's hold, but his attempts were futile as the muffled moans coming from his mouth were dying in the palm of the attacker's hand. The latter made the boy lose his balance under his weight, which resulted in Masaomi falling on his stomach on the bed, the man crushing him on the mattress before limiting the blond's moves by securing his arms behind his back. The lying boy stopped fidgeting to consider his position, and decided to gather his strength to roll on the side, dragging along the other man in his fall onto the floor.

Masaomi had been lucky enough to land on the other man, but he knew his good fortune was about to neglect him the moment he felt the man gripping his collar as he got up again, lifting Masaomi at the same time before pinning the smaller boy against the wall. The blond let out another moan when his back painfully met with the wall, but he was too busy loosening the tall man's grip on his collar to pay attention to the pain any longer. The boy felt his back slide upwards and his foot slowly left the floor under the sole will of the man's left arm, his second hand feeling the wall in the gloom of the room to find the light switch. Noticing the man's hand nearing it, the boy's eyes widened anxiously, afraid it might turn on the light and allow the man to see the upper part of his face. So Masaomi exhaled deeply and gave the man a hard headbutt, the unexpected blow making the latter fall on his back once more. However, the impact hadn't been enough to make the man release his hold on Masaomi's sweater, thus forcing the boy to follow him on the ground.

Masaomi cursed at his dizzy eyesight, his forehead still aching from his unreasonable and desperate attempt from a few seconds ago, but he decided to put an end to their fight and positioned the sharp blade under the man's jaw, the boy stilling his hand on the handle by topping it with the other. The man had completely ceased his attempts to counter, his hands lying flat on the floor as he recognized a knife in the cold steel pressing against the skin of his neck. The both of them were out of breath, and the boy on top took advantage of his position to take a look at the man spread-eagled beneath him. Shizuo had gotten rid of the smelly white shirt that had made contact with the drunken man from earlier, and he had probably been expecting Masaomi to come soon since he hadn't even bothered covering his bare chest with a tee-shirt. The wind cleared the clouds away from the luminous path of the moonlight that was lighting the man's blond locks, scattered on the floor, its range of radiance never daring to go any further. As for Shizuo, the sudden lighting confirmed what he already suspected: the boy straddling his waist and threatening his life with a knife was a kid.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Masaomi's heartbeat had finally slowed down to a more regular, less chaotic rate. He was thinking of a proper answer to give, he was thinking about the mess he'd dragged himself into. The blond was looking for a way to explain to the man how the leader of the Yellow Scarves wasn't supposed to fear using violence, how he ought not to be submissive to his fear. The blond wished Shizuo would understand that he needed to fade the color of the man's existence for Masaomi to stand out fully, to keep going on while taking the same harsh and lonely road that belonged to the delinquent he was. Yet what the boy feared the most was to let the man perceive a hint of anguish in his undecided voice while trying to convey his mental weaknesses into consistent sentences. His lips parted as his teeth clenched, making his eyelids lower until his eyes were half-open. Had he known the consequences of his answer, the boy wouldn't have voiced it to the man.

"You…" Masaomi started in a whisper. "You don't give me a choice!"

Shizuo could recognize a ring of distress when he heard one, even though the man would have been blind not to have noticed his panic before the boy spoke and maybe even dense not to have deducted it from his choice to face him of all people. The tall man wasn't as sensible to read the mood of an awkward situation when he had to face one, and he had never shown any interest or concern in understanding other people's feelings. To be honest, he considered dealing with his own feelings to be enough of a chore to care for the others', but the proximity of the kid on top of him made him experience a consciousness to his surroundings he thought to be long since gone. In fact, there was something about the way the kid was trying to steady his breath, framing the man's waist on the ground with his tight thighs that made Shizuo cool down from whatever anger or annoyance he might have felt for the boy. The man could blame the heat of their half-blind fight all he wanted for the sudden sensation of numbness in his body, but he couldn't deny the fact that sensing the boy's limbs literally exuding fear in a place where he could hardly discern the boy's features was what was draining his urge to break the kid's bones before throwing him out of his apartment through the closed sliding glass door.

The steel of the knife was now warm against his skin, but there was no end to the moves of the boy's hands loosening and then tightening around the thickness of the handle. Masaomi knew that the outcome of that temporary pause wouldn't be for the better, because he'd gone way too far to just pretend and feel regrets. His choice was reduced to what purpose his knife would serve and to what future hurting that man would promise him. In other words, giving in to his cowardice and living with remorse for the rest of his life or experiencing the requited suffering for his presumptuous act and being dislocated by Shizuo himself. He didn't exactly want to die right now, and thus decided that if there were the slightest possibility for him to survive the man's deadly treatment, then he would be honest and confess his feelings to his ex-girlfriend afterwards.

Shizuo had been waiting for that, for the kid to avert his eyes from the sight of the man and to close them completely, as in a silent apology. He lost no time in gripping Masaomi's wrist, making the latter drop the knife he was holding under the man's tightening hold, and he kicked the blond on the abdomen with his foot hard enough to make the boy's back hit the wall for the second time. As soon as Shizuo was on his two feet, he watched the boy's next moves closely, awaiting a counter that never came. Shizuo eventually switched the light on, which revealed the silhouette of the boy whose features he had only been able to guess in the darkness. The boy was sitting unconscious against the wall, his head slightly tilted to the side with his limp arms resting on his thighs. The color of his hair was a shade darker than his, but Shizuo could tell from the kid's thin eyebrows that it was a dye.

The man sighed heavily, stepping towards the boy, who had blacked out, and slipped an arm round the back of the boy's knees and another round his back to carry him in his arms and put him on the bed. The man brought a chair that he put next to the bed, sat on it and sized Masaomi up with a severe look. The man considered his different options to handle the kid's case: he could call the cops, but then he wouldn't get to lay a single finger on him. Leaving him in a remote and deserted place after torturing and confining him for a few days was a tempting idea, but the whole inconvenience wasn't worth a one-way ticket to stir or the short time spent on working the boy over. Though he'd not admit it openly, the bodyguard was actually curious to know the reason why the kid seemed to bear one huge grudge against him since the man couldn't recall having encountered the teenager before. Perhaps his visual memory was failing him, but he was pretty sure that no hot-headed boy as young as him had ever dared to come to his place to defy him on his own, let alone make an attempt on his life.

Shizuo scratched his head until he made a mess of his blond hair. He had never liked thinking over complicated things for too long, so he chose to let the boy sleep in his bed and wait for when the crazy boy would eventually regain consciousness.

* * *

The noise of steps informed the blond of the man's presence in the room, sometimes nearing the bed, sometimes moving away from it. However, it took another five steps and the bang of a door for him to partially relieve the tension his sole proximity inflicted on Masaomi's body, and it was that sudden and absolute silence that encouraged the blond to slowly raise his eyelids and check that the room was well and truly empty. After lifting his head from the cushion to scan his surroundings with a brief glance, he jumped out of the bed and hurried to the door to find out, much to his dismay, that the man hadn't left it unlocked. Knowing that Shizuo might be back by the time the blond would find the key, the latter not visible on any of the room's furniture, the blond decided to distance himself from the entrance in order to take a run-up and force open the door of the apartment with his shoulder. The action resulted in him moaning in pain against the door that had refused to yield under his strength. On the other hand, the boy heard a totally different door open, and figured that the noise of the impact had been loud enough to draw the other man's attention. Thus, his own instincts had taken over his body before he could even tell what to do, and he found himself running for his life in the corridor after breaking the door down with a strong kick. Stopping to persistently press the button to call the elevator, Masaomi's gaze drifted from the red number referring to the floor it had stopped on to Shizuo, who was running after him, and was convinced that it wouldn't make it in time to save him from the man's wrath, considering the distance between them, which kept reducing with each stride the bodyguard took.

Masaomi heard the man shouting at him the moment he continued his race, Shizuo's deep and vibrant voice echoing in the endless alleyway that the boy wished would promptly lead him to the stairs. The surrounding air felt cold on his skin, the sweat making his tee-shirt underneath cling to the heat of his body, his irrational fear occurring like a silent threat to make him muffle any moan due to the growing pain in his right foot. Jumping down the last stairs, he pushed the entrance's door with his two hands and lost no time in taking the opposite way to the road he followed the night before while hoping to outdistance his pursuer as soon as possible. The furtive look over his shoulder to assess their distance in the deserted alleyway, the curse breathed out in an erratic way to confirm that the man's long legs were an undeniable asset to his chase, and the rising speed of Masaomi's stride on the tar were the unfortunate circumstances of that insane situation where all that mattered was taking action and letting his body be. He hadn't felt that dreadfully thrilling sensation of danger in a very long time, and it made him consider if being hospitalized where his ex-girlfriend was currently recovering for a similar period of time would allow him to repent for his mistakes by thinking over and over again about his old days as a naïve and dependent kid.

After managing to vanish from the man's sight at the bend of another narrow alleyway, the blond was glad to realize that his fate hadn't booked him a room in a quite depressing hospital. Indeed, Simon Brezhnev was opening the Russian Sushi. Without thinking any further, he charged at the tall black Russian as fast as his aching foot allowed him, and knew that Simon would be perceptive enough to catch the pleading hint in his eyes without having to put his distress into words when Masaomi stopped right in front of him. The Sushi chef had to pause in the middle of his greeting since he was interrupted by Shizuo's full-throated roar of discontentment, the latter stating bluntly his bloody intentions towards the blond if he were to get his hands on him. Simon's reaction was immediate: the man's strong hands grabbed the boy's tight waist, lifting the blond with ease as he settled him on his shoulder before turning around and going along the bar behind which the owner of the restaurant, who was busy checking the content of his deliveries, displayed an impassive face to Masaomi. The tall man entered the back room of the restaurant, a quiet and intimate place where people usually ate, either to talk about serious business or when the tables lined up in front of the bar and distanced equally were full.

Though he couldn't see much from his current position, Masaomi understood from the noise Simon made, similar to pushing a sliding door to the side, that the man was bringing him into a separate room whose existence he hadn't been aware of as of yet. The man put down the boy after stepping forward into the room, making him sit on a pile of neglected boxes before assuring Masaomi that he'd be back in a few minutes. The sliding door shut behind Simon's back and the blond couldn't help laughing nervously at the thought of finally being in safety around Simon, the only one in Ikebukuro capable of putting up a decent fight against Shizuo and calming down the man's wildness. Masaomi's laugh didn't sound hearty, even to his own ears. Thus he heaved a sincere sigh of relief while studying the new room he'd have to stay in for as long as it'd take for his palpable fear to ease completely and to quit making him quiver all over. The blond pulled his knees up under his chin, careful not to rest his head too much on them so that it wouldn't weigh on his right foot, all the while thinking that his stay in that place depended also, in many ways, on his ability to stand that pain when he knew he'd been unreasonable to sprain his foot just to outdistance Shizuo's insane pace.

The mere thought of the man being after him made the boy shudder slightly, but the appearance of a smiling Simon holding a first-aid kit soon diverted his attention.

"Don't worry, _oniisan_. This box is going to take care of all your pains."

Masaomi smiled weakly at the man's clumsy turn of phrase. Had he been in his right mind, the blond would have gladly corrected his line while making fun of the foreigner, the man being way too kind and warmhearted to mind anyone teasing him. The boy quit his fetal position to go back to sitting normally on the mountain of boxes and brought his painful foot in his lap, undoing his shoelace before getting rid of his sock and exposing the skin of his swollen ankle. Simon opened the kit to find some liniment and bandages and bent down to apply the cream he had put on his hands, much to Masaomi's dismay, who kept on assuring him that he could perfectly take care of himself. Simon frowned at Masaomi's reaction, giving the blond a very detailed lecture on how kids didn't know how to apply cream nowadays, emphasizing, with energetic gestures, his statement on how to properly rub the liniment into the skin, and the boy had no other choice but to give up if he wanted those two glistening hands to stop moving near his head. The Sushi chef calmed down promptly after, the pacifist inside the tall man dictating him to smile at the boy's wise decision, and the room went back to its usual quietness prior to Simon's speech. The blond's gaze drifted from the sight of Simon taking care of his foot to the room, which had gotten narrow due to the pilling up of boxes on the ground that couldn't get in the shelf anymore.

"You're not going to ask me why I was being followed by Shizuo."

It wasn't a question, and Simon could tell, from the serious tone of his voice, that the man's attempts not to make the boy return to his serious-self had been futile. The chef sighed, bandaging Masaomi's ankle before putting everything back in the kit.

"I don't know what you're up to, Masaomi," the man admitted after meeting Masaomi's irises, "but Shizuo isn't like you think he is."

Masaomi frowned at that unpleasant sensation of déjà-vu, wondering what kind of innuendos he was supposed to make out of such a short sentence, even though it felt like he already knew the answer. Simon, who had crouched down earlier to wrap the boy's ankle around a bandage, stood straight again, forcing the blond to lift his head not to break their eye contact.

"Shizuo is like a beast. He will sense people's fear towards him and get violent if they mean harm to him," Simon explained, thus exposing Masaomi's condemnable intentions and making him look away with embarrassment. "Come to him in peace and I am sure he'll be willing to listen to what you say."

Comparing Ikebukuro's strongest man to a beast was the most perceptive picture Simon had come up with to figure out how Shizuo worked and to justify the man's primitive dread of being hurt and feared by people. Thus, the bestial performances he offered when losing his control and raging against his opponents were nothing more than a means for him to reciprocate equally people's level of panic, and that statement was as plausible as affirming that Shizuo was human, which he could _not_ be. Never could it occur to the blond that the man hadn't meant to build up his reputation from his brute strength, nor could the thought of the man hiding his flaws behind an urban legend spread by the elders' mouths to the youngers' ears ring true to him. By the time Masaomi realized he had directed his gaze at the sole window of the room, it was too late to expect Simon to listen to his thinking, the Russian chef having left his side a while ago to let Masaomi think through his words. A ringtone disturbed the silence Masaomi was basking in, and he regretted answering the call the moment he heard his best friend's anxious voice asking him to give an explanation as to why the blond was away from high school.

"Masaomi? It's Mikado. You remember I told you yesterday that I'd come by this morning? I was waiting for you in front of your place but it didn't seem like you were there, and since you didn't answer any of my calls, I went to school without you… Where are you? Are you sick? Do you want me to ask someone from your class to print you notes for the classes you're missing? Why are you laughing? Did I just say something funny? Please, tell me something!"

Masaomi was pretty sure the reason his mother had stopped worrying so much about him was because it had become too troublesome to look after the blond delinquent, but hearing Mikado acting the same, despite knowing very well he'd only get evasive replies to his questioning, tinged his feelings with a strange hint of nostalgia and brought back to his mind old memories from the past. Thus, letting out a soft laugh was the most sincere answer he could give to how much Mikado cared for him.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to laugh at you, but do you realize that even my own folks don't make such a fuss on the phone when they don't know my whereabouts?"

Masaomi had expected his question to embarrass Mikado intensely, the latter having difficulties to make his stammers consistent while the blond suspected a familiar flush to tinge his dark-haired friend's cheeks.

"Wh-What are you talking about?" the boy eventually managed to say, the ring of his tone suggesting he was upset. "Of course Anri and I would be worried about you since you usually message one of us when you're not going to school! So, what happened to you?"

"Well, basically," the blond started, his forefinger tapping playfully against the surface of the packages he was sitting on, "I wanted to break up with my girlfriend last night in due form—remember I told you we weren't exactly in a lovey-dovey relationship?"

"Masaomi, I've never heard of this..."

"—right, so I went to her place. She had left the door of her apartment unlocked, and I didn't bother warning her when I got inside so she thought I was a thief or something and she started mistreating me by taking advantage of her height and… weight."

"M-Mistreating you? I can hardly imagine a girl mistreating you at all… And just how tall is she?"

Masaomi paused in his effective melodrama, pondered on the question and gave a rough estimation to the other boy.

"She is probably fifteen centimeters taller than me, but it might be a little more…" Masaomi replied, his voice trailing off the deeper he got in his thinking. However, the silence of the boy on the other end of the line clearly confirmed that he suspected the blond's story to have sprung from his fantasies.

"… Masaomi, you won't pull my leg this time so please, just stop talking nonsense and tell me where you ar—"

"When I told her I wanted to break up, she just couldn't bring herself to think she wouldn't be by my side anymore, so she decided to lock me up after I lost consciousness." Masaomi continued, interrupting his best friend for the second time and setting the back of his hand on his forehead in a dramatic pose that couldn't be seen by anyone but himself.

"The next morning—today, that is—I managed to escape by pretending I was still sleeping and now I'm crashing at a good acquaintance's place. So you shall not worry, Mikado, because now that I've survived true hell with only a sprained ankle, I can definitely be dedicated to your unrequited love and—"

"Masaomi…"

"Yeah?"

"I'm hanging up."

* * *

Shizuo didn't like it. He didn't like the fact that his description turned out to involve a much more complex situation than what he wanted it to be and how the end of his sentences would always remain unfinished due to his evident lack of information. Tom was no longer typing a document, his fingers remaining on the keys of his laptop's keyboard until he deigned to take his eyes off the screen to look at the pensive bodyguard. The man readjusted his glasses on his nose, leaning on his elbows and resting his chin on his interlaced fingers, cogitating on how to figure out a logical explanation to the recent events. A tray, consisting of the various dishes they had ordered, encumbered his sight of the blond man wearing a bartender suit, forcing Tom to put aside his laptop to make room for the bowls Simon was setting on the table. The latter offered his two customers a bright smile, his blue eyes enquiring discreetly about Shizuo's mood, which could be perceived from the folded arms on his chest, the indelible frown of his brows, and his obstinately closed eyelids. Tom was already indulging himself with a mouthful of _nattō_ that he soon topped with rice, sticking his two chopsticks in each of his dishes while Shizuo remained perfectly still and impassive to the combined and tempting scent of the steaming food. A long sigh in the form of an opaque cloud of smoke escaped from Shizuo's lips after he lighted and dragged on his cigarette, directing it at the ceiling and adding a new smell to the confined room. Despite the hunger, Tom gradually slowed the pace at which he was eating, eyeing Shizuo once more as well as the dishes he had ordered for the bodyguard—untouched, given that the man didn't want to eat. Leaving his chopsticks on the rim of his bowl, Tom watched the blond's moves as he dragged the ashtray in front of him.

"Cigarettes won't feed you, Shizuo," Tom stated in a monotonous voice.

"I don't care, I'm not hungry. And it was your idea to eat here."

Tom rubbed his temples as Shizuo's cigarette burned, momentarily held by the notch of the ashtray's rim so the man could take out his phone and leave it amongst the bowls before cracking the knuckles of his sore hands. Tom no longer knew if the bodyguard was angry at him for suggesting having dinner at the Russian Sushi, or if his mind was still fixated on the anonymous boy with a yellow scarf around his neck. Either way, Tom had to take the initiative if he wanted that one-sided conversation to lead to a conclusive decision, the outcome of which would positively affect his bodyguard in aspects that his employer knew to be of a mental nature. Simon appeared again the moment Tom had gathered enough will power to discuss Shizuo's matters once and for all, surprising both of the men sitting on their heels. It was up to the blond to go to the trouble of declining the Sushi chef's proposal of clearing off their table since they had barely touched the dishes at all. The latter smiled gently at Shizuo, the bodyguard boldly ignoring the attention he was given by wedging his cigarette between his fingers and sliding his cellphone open to stare casually at the screen that displayed a picture of his younger brother, Kasuka, taken during the filming of his latest movie, as his background.

"I know you're still dubious but I'm not lying: I never thought it'd happen but that kid came to my place with a knife, and it wasn't to play around," the man asserted, tapping his cigarette against the glass of the ashtray to take the ash off. "If you're still doubtful about my sanity, you can contact my bro—"

"Shizuo, I do not doubt you," Tom assured in a confident voice while repressing a sigh. "But you have to understand that the problem here lies in whether or not you want to find out the reason why that teenager was after you."

"Why would it be a problem?"

"Well," the employer started, still trying to find the right way to convey his thoughts without irritating the blond, "unless that boy turns out to be absolutely _crazy_, I believe there is some kind of good motives as to why he went all the way to your apartment to confront you."

Simon had left them to take the order of a couple that was heavily chatting after having entered the restaurant a moment ago, almost covering up the conversations of the customers surrounding them. Shizuo could hear, distinctly, the voices that were interfering with his train of thought, making it difficult for him to focus on a brief and concise reply to give to his employer. He supposed that he had already made up his mind to discover the source of the blond-dyed boy's inexplicable grudge towards him. He had searched through the kid's pockets to find his cellphone, used it to dial his own number so that he could contact his mysterious aggressor when he'd find the appropriate time. Truth be told, the memories of the night before, which had deprived him of his sleep, were still haunting him, the vivid picture on the blackboard of his mind still redrawing the silhouette of that lean frame straddling his waist, the weight of regrets curving the boy's brown eyebrows in guiltiness and those irises colored in an unusual way, bearing in them his unspoken insecurities, along with something else the man had yet to put his finger on. Although Tom's arguments suggested that the blame was most likely to lie solely on his short-tempered nature and his apparent tactlessness that had spurred him to resort to violence instead of solving the problem with endless morals the blond wasn't even preoccupied with, Shizuo could put his mind at ease since he believed that confessing his unintentional abuse of the teenager meant that he was on his way to redemption. Shizuo crushed the lit end of his cigarette in the ashtray before scrolling down the contact list of his cell phone, his thumb resting on the dial button.

"What are you doing?" Tom asked, pouring sake in his glass before taking a sip of its content.

"I'm calling the brat."

The debt collector choked, offended at the nonchalant behavior of the bodyguard who had asked to consult Tom in spite of the fact he was telling him that he had already taken measures regarding the boy. Simon and the owner of the restaurant exchanged a worried look, the Russian's hands visibly tightening their hold on the tray where Dennis had put the next drinks to serve, and then observed the bodyguard as he pressed the dial button and brought the cellphone to his ear. The calling tone rang four times, and the blond was paying no attention to the muttered complaints of his employer while waiting for his call to reach out to the high schooler. The fifth tone was followed by a distinctly audible ringtone that filled the back room of the restaurant with utter confusion and absolute incomprehension, both those feelings being responsible for Shizuo's deepening frown as he distanced his cellphone from his right ear. The narrow tips of Tom's chopsticks remained still on his tongue, the taste of rice invading his mouth while he looked at the man in front of him as if to testify tacitly that the ringtone didn't come from his mind. It stopped eventually, assessing at that very time that the ringtone had been silenced in the desperate attempt of preventing the bodyguard from hearing the personalized voicemail of its owner.

Shizuo placed the palms of his hands on the table, pushed on them to rise up and went round it to stand still in front of the sliding door from which the recognizable noise of crashing boxes could be perceived. The trajectory of a kitchen knife stood in the way of the blond's hand, stopping the fingers before they could even brush the wooden frame, and it took Shizuo several seconds for him to register the precision of its aiming and to avert his eyes from the tool to look icily at the man behind the bar. Dennis returned the man's stare with the same intensity, a glare meant to dissuade the blond from getting into a room that wasn't opened to the customers. The whole restaurant reached an unusual level of quietness as a result of the surprising scene they were witnessing. Despite Simon forbidding him to enter, the man couldn't waste any more time in listening to orders he didn't give a damn about and pushed the sliding door to the side to access the private room the blond boy that he had tried to contact was presumably staying in.

What he saw there was scattered boxes on the ground and an opened window letting in a weak breeze making the curtain undulate accordingly to its strength. The first-aid kit had also been dropped along the way, spreading the liniment and the bandages Simon used to ease the pain of the boy's right foot. Shizuo cursed colorfully, hurriedly kicking the empty boxes to the side while trying to make his way through in order to get to the window overlooking a deserted dead-end, clearly indicating that the kid had managed to escape the opposite and unique way. Folding the curtain with his grip on the blue material, the bodyguard was about to jump out of the window until Simon's deep voice made him consider his chances to find the boy in the main street, the latter probably being crowded with teenagers he might easily mistake for the blond. Tom's bodyguard huffed to breathe out his frustration, setting his foot back on the floor from the frame of the window not to repeat the very same moves of the blond boy who had already slipped out of his hands three hours ago. In fact, Shizuo had lowered his guard and had gone to the bathroom, letting the delinquent, supposedly sleeping on his bed, get away from his apartment and taunt him by leaving him behind in the numerous alleyways of Ikebukuro.

"Don't, Shizuo... Masaomi won't last long since his ankle is hurt, so he will probably hide somewhere."

Shizuo recognized in the scent of the room the odor of food, catching sight of the leftovers on a tray that had been left in the boy's hurry on the floor. Turning around to see Simon leaning his imposing body against the wall, Shizuo resolved to have the Russian chef explain to him how in the world he could be backing up a boy who had threatened Shizuo's life, and why a member of the Dollars seemed to be affiliated with such an impetuous youngster who belonged to the Yellow Scarves.

* * *

Masaomi watched the gradually decreasing rush of students from the gate of Raira High School, the high schoolers chatting with enthusiasm about their plans for the weekend to come. The flow of exiting students had stagnated at first, the steadiness of its flood assessing their growing number with the years, and it came down to a few stragglers by the time the blond lifted up his head, shifting the sight of his still sprained ankle to the red skies. The few scattered clouds were still being reflected in the lifeless irises of his amber eyes, and his lips were sketching a weak smile on the pale complexion of his face, as if about to spill a soft giggle occasioned by the vivid memories of the day before. His eyes had recorded every little detail from the last thrilling events he experienced, including every glimpse of blond locks having intruded his eyesight. And it felt like the hint of _his_ heavy, albeit ominous, perfume had invaded the boy's nostrils for good. Maintaining such a sharpened awareness to his surroundings had been extremely exhausting, even though it had allowed him to be currently leaning against the gate of his school right now, waiting for his two late friends to come, instead of having his corpse decomposing in a rough area of the district. His mind was taking a wicked delight in remembering how much he had struggled in pain just to manage leaving the restaurant in time with his aching foot so that he wouldn't have to confront Ikebukuro's unbeatable man, Shizuo Heiwajima. The blond would make sure to apology to the owner of Russia Sushi for the disturbance he might have caused to Dennis' customers and for the mess in the private room. Of course, he'd forget by no means to thank Simon for the tray of food he offered him in spite of the fact the boy had left his wallet home, the latter being the first place that had come to his mind when pondering where he could take refuge after his escape.

His nights had been disturbed since then, basically consisting of staring at the square ceiling of his room, enlightened from time to time by the yellow headlights of some passing cars in the bordering street, and turning and tossing in his bed whilst expecting to drift off so that the slumber would free him from his worries momentary. At times, he'd awoken with a start before shuddering from the cold sweat beading his forehead once the temperature of his body dropped. Masaomi knew that he was no longer safe in his apartment, and that each step nearing his door had been a pretext for him to awaken from his light sleep and be miles away. His thoughts would always be addressed to his two friends who had come to pay him a visit the day before, after classes, but a silence and the greetings of Masaomi's voicemail were the only answers to their persistent knocks on the blond's door and to their unanswered calls. He felt a twinge of sadness when he heard the metallic noise made by the closing flap of his mail slot, suggesting that Mikado and Anri had left him printed notes of the classes he had missed. It took him two days to regain a semblance of composure and to go back to school, to return to pretending that the thread of his mundane life hadn't been severed. Or that he hadn't already fallen within the realm of drastic changes that would eventually corner him in a point of no return. Though the smiles he offered his friends were no longer as broad as to reveal his teeth in a hearty grin, Masaomi had managed to keep the reason behind his limping secret by diverting their attention from their ongoing conversation and asking them for advice about a few pick-up lines he had elaborated. If Anri had sensed the change in subject, she had remained perfectly silent about it whereas Mikado had been yelping with surprise when an innocent arm had suddenly settled on his nape, having encircled his neck in a swift and brute move.

The noise of fast steps made him turn his head to the side, watching his two friends he had been waiting for, as they trotted his way.

"Hey, you two, what took you so long?"

"Sorry, Masaomi, we tried to hurry but our homeroom teacher wanted to see us after classes to talk about the preparations of the upcoming school festival." Mikado replied between two breaths.

"It must be tough on you to deal with that kind of events… But it can't be helped, Mr. and Miss Class Representative."

Once he spotted that light flush shyly spreading on Mikado's cheeks, the latter brushing the black hair on the back of his head with a sweaty hand, Masaomi knew it had been all too easy for him to grow fond of his friend's habits. He couldn't blame Mikado for being enchanted by the girl, considering the large chest she was gifted with, making her blue uniform outline what was behind in a generous yet appealing curve, or her bobbed black hair that always smelled like cherries the rare times she'd kiss them on the cheeks to greet them in the morning. Plus, the blond was certain that the visible surface of her two legs was up to the sensation of sliding silk on his fingers, though he would rather handcuff his wrists with such a delicate texture for the rest of his life rather than checking the authenticity of those thoughts. No, there was no way he'd screw up his friendship with Anri, whose sole presence by his side was enough to make him elate on higher grounds. Still, Masaomi hoped that his dense friend didn't believe his evident crush on the young girl would go unnoticed forever, since the blond had decided that it'd be his duty to help the relationship between his two reserved friends evolve into love. To do so, he was ready to repress his own inexhaustible feelings of love in a desperate act straight out of a made-up scenario involving them all in the tragedy of a love triangle. After all, Masaomi adored comparing his dedication to valuing love over friendship to the Niagara Falls. In abundance, that was.

An autumnal breeze swept the leaves away, which had turned an indecisive shade of yellow and brownish-red, as if to clear the schoolyard from their remains. Somehow, it felt to Masaomi that his fears, born from his worries to start a new life from scratch, were literally blown away as the chilly wind was working in his head in ways he could not explain. His skin dotted in a subtle shudder as his mind was eventually freed at the realization that he'd already found a place where he belonged.

When Masaomi proposed to his friends hanging out together and catching up on lost time, a pregnant pause ensued, soon followed by fresh smiles, closed eyelids and the faint scent of blooming adolescence in the bitter cold of the fall.

Fin.

* * *

**I'd love to know what you guys think about this one-shot in a review :)**


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